Weekly Review January 27 '23

 Here we are, almost through January already! I can't say I mind too much since that means we are getting closer to spring. This week was fairly busy again. Last Saturday I did do the sewing class as planned. Three girls came, and all three finished their skirts. The girls who had finished really wanted to wear their skirts, so they all wore them on Sunday to church. 

We took a photo with all the girls, not just the ones who were wearing new skirts, but all but four of the girls in the picture are wearing a skirt that they made. The two girls on either end in the back row didn't come to the class and the two girls who haven't finished their skirts yet are also in the back row...third from the right and third from the left. Everyone else is wearing a new skirt that she made herself. It was really fun to see all the finished skirts! One other girl who finished her skirt on Saturday wasn't there on Sunday...she had a family event. Here is a picture of her trying on the skirt when she finished it.

We're going to have another Sunday after the other girls have finished when we have them all wear their skirts so we can take another picture. I was always too busy during the classes to take any pictures, but some of the other leaders took some pictures and sent them to me, so here are some of those (most taken the first week (December 3rd), when the girls were cutting out their skirt pieces):

The tracing paper I purchased to make patterns for the pockets came with a paper mustache for some reason, so I was trying it on! 😂

Two girls finished the third class (January 7th) and then these four girls finished on January 14th:

This is me helping one of the girls on January 14th:

And here are a couple more I took last week (January 21st) of the other girls who finished their skirts:

I did get a chance to talk to the mom of the girl who missed all the classes, and she is going to come to my house sometime so I can help her make her skirt. We just need to figure out a day that will work. It will probably only take a few hours since I'll be able to focus on one skirt the entire time. 

Okay, so enough about the sewing class! I am really happy that we did it because it was a lot of fun and the girls got a lot of satisfaction out of it. I can't remember what else I did last Saturday except that I finished reading Grandma Gatewood's Walk. I read quite a bit of it last Friday evening so I was nearly finished by Saturday. I really enjoyed it, overall.

On Sunday I had a class presidency meeting before church and a short ministering interview after church. Frank left church after Sacrament Meeting because he wasn't feeling well...his blood sugar was off and he needed to eat something and lie down for a while. I can't remember if I mentioned it last week, but Seth blessed the sacrament for the first time that Sunday (the 15th) and then blessed it again last Sunday (the 22nd). He did a great job...spoke slowly and clearly. 

I had a dentist appointment on Monday...I had to get a small cavity filled. Other than that, it was a normal Monday with laundry, grocery shopping, and vacuuming, plus family night in the evening. 

Our ward had a youth baptism trip on Tuesday evening. It was kind of late for a school night, but that's the only time we could get an appointment. The seminary teacher agreed to excuse all the youth who went to the temple from seminary the next morning, which was nice because we didn't get to bed until 11:00 pm and we really needed that extra hour of sleep! We ended up having 10 youth attend and 9 adults. Frank works so close to the temple that he decided to meet us there. Instead of coming home from work, he got some dinner and then went to the temple to do some initiatories before meeting us when we arrived. I was able to ride down to the temple with one of the other leaders (and several youth and one of the moms who came) so I was able to ride home with Frank, which was nice. Seth and his friend Henry, who both became priests this month, were able to do all the baptisms. They did a good job. Seth had to redo one of the baptisms several times because the boy who was proxy kept stiffening up so he couldn't get him all the way under, but they finally got it right. Seth didn't get flustered at all, which I thought was pretty remarkable. The mom of one of the girls who came along is blind so I ended up helping her get around the whole evening. She wanted to do something to help, so they had her hand the towels to each youth as they came out of the font. My job was to get the towels from the shelf and hand them to her. It was nice to sit there the whole time and see all the baptisms and feel the spirit that was there, and this mom said afterwards how much she enjoyed it so I'm glad she was able to come. Frank was helping with confirmations. The temple matron talked to our group before we began and I really liked what she said. She talked about the Willie and Martin handcart companies and how they got caught in a terrible snowstorm and the snow literally stopped them from being able to move forward and they had to be rescued by others. Then she told the youth that many people in the spirit world have been stopped in their progress--they can't go any further--so the youth are their rescuers as they are proxies for these people so that they can be baptized and continue to move forward. It was a great evening, even though we were really tired by the time we got home. This is our whole group except one of the men (he took the picture):

The temple looks so beautiful at night!

I love how bright the stained glass windows look now! While they were renovating the temple, they took out every piece of stained glass and cleaned it and then put it back where it was before. They didn't look dirty before, but they look so much clearer and brighter now. (You can't see much of them in the photos; I'll have to get better photos next time.)

On Wednesday I went to the library to return a couple of books and I picked up a new one that I had on hold. It's called We Need to Talk...it's a nonfiction book about communication. My ministering sister mentioned she read it recently and enjoyed it and it sounded interesting to me so I decided to read it too. I haven't read much yet, but it has been pretty interesting so far. We got a little bit of snow on Wednesday. It never really stuck, other than just a dusting on the ground, but it was pretty when it was coming down. 

(Kind of hard to see in the photo, but those white spots are snowflakes!) By later in the day, the snow turned to rain and it rained the rest of the day. Jared & Jessie came over for dinner and as usual we enjoyed visiting with them and we played some Wii sports together too. Jared is feeling better than he was...he feels like he is healing much better from surgery this time and a lot of his GI issues are a lot better than they were. He still has some joint pain and back pain and he needs to follow up on that, along with getting his liver checked too. But it's nice to see him feeling better than he was. Jessie started school this week...she is taking some classes at the local community college to get a certificate to be a surgical assistant. She ended up quitting her job because they weren't training her very well, plus she found out she could start school a lot sooner than she anticipated. Jared had two job interviews this week, both of which went really well so hopefully he will have a job soon. He is thinking he may go back to school...this fall, if he can work it out in time. He's thinking about going into radiology. 

On Thursday I did some service...helped a family in our ward who are going through their storage units and trying to condense what they have down enough so that they will only have one storage unit instead of three. It was kind of difficult to help since I can't make decisions for them about what to keep and what to donate or throw away, but I did go through 5 or 6 boxes of things in the couple of hours that I was there. It was cold and very windy yesterday and I was outside the whole time so I didn't enjoy that much but I did enjoy talking with them and with the other helpers who were there. They still have a LOT of work to do...must be so overwhelming. This is a reminder to me that I should be very selective about what I decide to keep! My back and shoulders hurt a little bit last night but they are feeling better today.

Today I had a YW presidency meeting. Originally, we were going to meet in person and go through our YW closet while we talked but the YW president has been sick all week (she wasn't able to go to the temple with us either) so she wasn't up to doing that today. We had an online meeting instead, and it was very long because we haven't had a meeting in over a month, The YW president's husband actually has Covid but she tested negative (and her daughter who is sick tested negative too). They were all sick at Christmas time and two of her daughters had Covid then, so it's been kind of crazy for them! We've actually had a lot of Covid going around our ward the last couple of months, with many of the youth in our ward getting it. Hopefully everyone will be healthy again soon.

In my little bit of free time this week, I've been listening to an audio book about receiving revelation which has been really good so far. I also watched a documentary about Pearl Harbor, which is even more meaningful for me now that I've visited there. 

We had a really beautiful sunrise on Tuesday. It kept changing every few minutes and was beautiful in a different way. I took a ton of pictures (and wasn't even able to get some of the prettiest parts of it because I was driving) so I will finish up this week's post with some of those sunrise photos.

Weekly Review January 20 '23

 When I left off last week, I was mentioning that my shoulder, neck and arm were hurting, and that I hoped the pain would go away soon. It did, so I'm grateful for that. I don't know what was wrong, but I'm glad I feel better.

This week has been pretty busy too. It seems like there is some sort of event every day. Last Saturday we had the "last" sewing class as planned. Four more girls finished their skirts, which means there are still five girls who need to finish. For most of the class, I worked with one girl who had missed the previous two classes so all she had done up to that point is cut out her pieces. With me helping her for most of the time, she got close to finishing. All she has left is to sew down the casing and insert the elastic. Since my friend Rebekah--who has been helping a lot with the class--and I both have time tomorrow, we decided to have another class tomorrow for the girls who haven't finished. We checked with their moms and they were available too. I think we'll be able to help at least three of the girls finish tomorrow. That will leave two girls to finish, but one of them is Rebekah's daughter so she can help her finish at home. (She has missed a few classes and hasn't been very focused at the ones she has been to.) The last girl has not come to any of the classes...not even the one where they picked out fabric. But since she was planning to come, we picked out some fabric for her. So I would like to help her make a skirt with the fabric but I'm not sure yet how I'll do that. I will have to talk to her and her mom to see what we can figure out. At this point, I don't really want her to come to the class tomorrow because she is so far behind everyone else it would be difficult to help her and the other girls simultaneously. Anyway, I am pleased that so many of the girls have completed their skirts or are close to completing them. I could tell that they have each been happy and felt a sense of accomplishment as they have finished. It has been a lot of fun for me too! I'm kind of surprised, but I have truly enjoyed the process. The girls are planning to wait until everyone is done and then all wear their skirts to church together. I am looking forward to getting some photos of them in their new skirts.

After the sewing class, Frank and I went out to dinner with our friends the Whipples. They are another couple in our ward. Brother Whipple's birthday is the day after Frank's and they are good friends so we like to celebrate their birthdays together. We have taken them out to dinner the last couple of years so this year they insisted on taking us to dinner. We had a yummy dinner and enjoyed visiting. We're planning to go out together again in April because we discovered that our anniversaries are only one day apart too! We gave Frank some cards that morning and Jared stopped by while I was gone to the sewing class to give him a card and two new ties. I didn't get him any presents because he was thinking about signing up for a scuba certification course as his gift, and that's pretty expensive so it would have been his only gift. He finally decided the day before his birthday that he wasn't going to do that, so I felt kind of bad that I didn't have presents for him, but he is going to pick out a few things of his own. (And I did keep reminding him that he needed to make up his mind so not really my fault! 😉) I guess I did get him one small thing...I surprised him by getting him a carton of Ben & Jerry's phish food ice cream because I know he really likes that. It was funny because I had to hide it under some other things in the freezer so he wouldn't find it. Frank also received a card from all the Primary leaders & workers, which I thought was really nice. Here's a photo of the cake that Frank made last week:

I think that's pretty good considering he only had one short class. (I wouldn't have been able to do so well!) It tasted pretty good too!

Sunday was pretty busy. We had Ward Conference and Frank had several meetings before church. The meetings with the stake were really good. Our bishop gave a great talk based on the hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief". After church I had a meeting with my new class presidency, but first they all had to go get set apart so I had to wait a while. We had a pretty good meeting...managed to plan the activity we were in charge of on Tuesday and also decided who will be teaching on Sunday and when we will have our next meeting. We decided we're going to try meeting before church instead of after church, on the Sundays when there isn't choir practice. (We only have 2 choir practices per month, normally.) Frank had another meeting later that afternoon...it was for the Primary children who are turning 8 and getting baptized this year. He had to speak at that.

Monday was MLK Day so Frank was off work and Seth didn't have school. I had the usual things like grocery shopping and laundry to do. That evening, I went with Frank so he could give a blessing to a sister in our ward who was about to have surgery. She is one of the sisters I minister to, so that's why I went with him. Her dad did the anointing and Frank gave the blessing. It was nice to meet her parents (who live in another ward) and her husband and children. (None of them actively attend church.) We enjoyed visiting with all of them for a while; they are a super nice family. There was a really sweet spirit there.

We had youth activities as usual on Tuesday evening. The YM played four square and had donuts...this was to celebrate Frank's birthday so he got to choose the activity and treat. Frank was hurting afterwards--I guess the game got kind of intense!--but he had fun too and he felt better after a good night's sleep. The YW played a couple of versions of the game Charades, and ate snacks. That's the best we could come up with since we had so little time to plan; hopefully we'll come up with some more meaningful activities in the future. 😄 All the girls had assignments to bring either part of the snack or something for the games, and they all remembered to do their assignments without any reminders, so I was impressed with and happy about that. I think everyone had a fun time, too, and a couple of the girls brought friends.

On Wednesday I was supposed to have a YW presidency meeting but we had to postpone it because the YW president wasn't feeling well. She had a bad migraine for a coupld of days but is feeling better now. Frank worked from home and he took some time off at lunch time to run a few errands with me. I picked up a book for Seth at the library and then he filled his car with gas and took it through the car wash because he parked under a tree a few days before and a bunch of birds pooped all over it! Jared came over for dinner that evening. Jessie didn't come because she wasn't feeling really well. (I think she is better now too.) My ministering sister came to visit me that evening and I enjoyed her visit, as usual. 

Yesterday I went to the temple to do an endowment session. The temple was busy...the session I was in was nearly full. It's nice to see the temple so busy! I think I was the last person to arrive at the session and I snagged the last empty seat on the women's side, which was in the back row so I had a pretty long wait at the end of the session. That's okay though...I enjoy having quiet time in the temple. 

It was cloudy yesterday and rained quite a bit. Overall, temperatures have been quite mild for January...highs in the low 50s...but I hear it's going to get colder soon. 

Last night I had an online volunteer orientation meeting for VITA. The new program manager does not seem to be very organized, but hopefully he'll get the hang of it. The tax season starts in just a couple of weeks. I don't know yet exactly when I will be volunteering but it will likely be on Wednesdays. That's the day I said I was available, but they haven't made a schedule yet. The meeting was pretty good though and I did get some helpful information. I spent some time this week going over some training for Maryland state taxes. I should still do some more reviewing for Federal taxes too, but mostly I feel fairly prepared.

Today I have been busy updating the finances, my usual Friday activity. Seth will be getting home from school soon. He hasn't had to walk home yet this week...I picked him up yesterday because it was raining and the other two days he got rides with the family we used to carpool with to the charter school. Those boys have been homeschooled the last several years, but the two younger ones just started attending TJ at the beginning of the semester (last week). Seth was talking with them after school when their parents came to pick them up so they offered Seth a ride too. Yesterday, since I was planning to pick Seth up I texted their mom and asked if she would like me to pick up her boys (trying to return the favor!) and she accepted for one her boys--the other one was staying after school for batting practice. Meanwhile, I haven't seen Seth's friend Courage this week (the boy who usually walks home with him and stays here until his brother or dad picks him up). His older brother's schedule changed for the semester and now he is at TJ for the last half of the day (he was at the local community college taking a course last semester) so they have been leaving the school together and going other places before they pick up their younger sisters from their school. I'm not sure if he will be coming here anymore, but if he does he and his brother both will probably come here to hang out until it's time to pick up their sisters. 

Seth has been reading the Chronicles of Prydain and he is in the 4th book (out of five). He has also been reading another series that Frank has called Monster Hunters International. He finished the last book that Frank owns, but there are more, so that's why I was picking up a book from the library for Seth. Meanwhile, I have been reading Grandma Gatewood's Walk for book club and it's pretty good. I really enjoy it when I'm reading it but it's not super compelling so I don't pick it up all that often which means I'm working my way through it pretty slowly. I should finish it in plenty of time, though. I have the assignment to bring the books to choose from next time, so I've been trying to figure out what books I'm going to bring. I might bring some of the recent Newbery winners or I might go with classic adventure tales like Treasure Island  and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I haven't decided yet.

I can't think of anything else that happened this week so I guess that's all I have to say!

Weekly Review January 13 '23

 Let's see if I can remember what we did this week. Last Saturday, the 7th, was a very busy day. I had a hair appointment in the morning. Seth and Frank came over and got haircuts too, while my hair color was processing. After I got back from my hair appointment, Frank drove me over to the eye doctor to leave my glasses there so they could put the new lenses in. Then we did a few errands before going back to get them (with Frank driving, of course!) One of the things we did was pick up some sandwiches we had ordered for a meeting we had on Sunday. 

After the errands I came home and cleaned the kitchen floor before going to the sewing class. Once again, the class went pretty well. Two of the girls finished their skirts and a couple more almost finished. It was fun to see how excited the girls were who finished their skirts! Tomorrow is the last scheduled class, but I'm sure some of the girls won't be done with their skirts yet...especially a few who have missed one or more classes. So after tomorrow's class I will have to assess where we're at and figure out if we need to have a couple more classes or if I can help those girls individually or what. 

That evening I found out I had to teach my YW class the next day because the advisor, who was supposed to be teaching, was sick. There's a lot of sickness going around our ward right now, it seems. The other class advisor was also sick and by Tuesday the YW president was sick too. I'm glad that I have stayed well so far.

Sunday was my first YW class with my new class. At the beginning, Frank came in to release the class president and present the new class presidency to be sustained. I was happy that all but one of the girls was there...even one who doesn't come very often at all. I think my lesson went okay overall, even though I didn't have much time to prepare. Immediately after church we had a training meeting for all the new class and quorum presidencies. Seth is not in the Priest's Quorum presidency, but he was allowed to stay for the meeting (and eat) so we wouldn't have to take him home in between meetings. Because it was lunch time, we served lunch to all the youth before starting the meeting. Each adult leader had a part of the training to do and also provided part of the lunch. Since there were only 5 parts to the training, though, Frank and I got to do one part together and we were assigned to bring the sandwiches. Other leaders brought fruit, veggies, drinks, and cookies. I think it went well. 

The rest of the week has been pretty busy...I feel like I had at least one event every day. On Monday I went to visit my friend Wanda. It was a short visit, but it was good to get caught up with her. She didn't get to attend the Washington DC temple openhouse, so I showed her the virtual tour video and she loved seeing that. 

On Tuesday I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. We hadn't had the chance to talk for a while so it was good to get caught up with her too. That evening we had a combined YM/YW activity. The YM were in charge and they planned to play Family Feud. It was really fun and I think the kids all had a good time. The adults didn't play the regular rounds, but at the end we did a "speed round" with the YW leaders against the YM leaders. The YW secretary and I were the only YW leaders there (the rest of them were sick) so she and I did a speed round against Frank and the other counselor in the Bishopric. I am happy to report that the YW leaders won by a large margin!! Frank went first and I went second. I didn't think I had done all that great, but when I finished the bishop said I got 4 of the #1 answers (out of 5 questions). So I got a lot of points! One thing that made me laugh is that one of the questions was "name something that you don't like to see an 'out of order' sign on". Both the YW secretary and I said "a bathroom" (which was the top answer). Frank said a shake machine and the other bishopric counselor said a vending machine (neither of those anwers was even on the list). So, both women thought of bathrooms and both men thought of food! 😂

They both went for the buzzer so quickly that they knocked it onto the floor!:

Tuesday was the last day of the 2nd term / 1st semester at school, so Wednesday was a day off for the kids. Frank was working from home that day too. It was nice to sleep in a bit! I went to the library to pick up the next book for book chat. (I've only read the first chapter so far.) Jared & Jessie came over to do laundry and had dinner with us. We also played Bananagrams.

On Thursday I had a RS activity in the evening. We did "Speed Friendshipping", which is basically the same as Speed Dating. We sat around a long table and for 3 minutes we would talk to the person across from us. After three minutes we moved down a chair and talked to the next person. It was pretty fun, but also quite loud, so I had trouble hearing what the other person was saying sometimes. I did learn a few new things about a couple of people, though. At the end we each shared something new we had learned about another person and everyone else tried to guess who that person was. One of the women in my ward who is blind asked me if I could give her and her daughter (YW were invited too) a ride there and back so I did that and it was nice to have the chance to talk to them a bit more too. 

Today I went to the temple with my friends Tammy and Rebekah. Tammy made an appointment to do initiatories and let others know she was going if anyone wanted to join her so Rebekah and I did that. It was nice to go together and I enjoyed the chance to visit (and it was nice not to drive for once!) This evening we celebrated Frank's birthday by going out to dinner at the Olive Garden. Jared and Jessie met us there too. (We did our family celebration tonight because Frank and I are going out with friends tomorrow night.)

Frank had a busy week with his business...he did some work for a client on Wednesday evening, yesterday he did monthly maitenance for all of them, and this afternoon he did some work for another client. He also had to do work for a client last Sunday (after our youth training meeting). Yesterday at his work they had an employee training day and they had several classes they could attend. Most were work related stuff or things like retirement planning but they also had a cake decorating class and Frank went to that. They each got to decorate a cake, so he ended up making his own birthday cake! I will include a photo next week. 

Seth is glad to be done with his Algebra 2 class. He managed to pull off another C, which is pretty good considering he was failing shortly before Winter Break. I'm still frustrated about how all of that played out and we are looking into possibly having him retake the class this summer, since we think he missed big chunks of information that he will need to do the higher math like pre Calculus. That will kind of depend on how long the class lasts and whether it will be available in an online format, though. He got 100% in his Government class and did very well in his CTC class too. Now he is taking English and Biology instead of Algebra 2 and Government. We'll see how that goes...English is defnitely not his best subject.

I've enjoyed listening to some audio books this week while doing other chores. I listened to two books about the temple (they were fairly short, but really good) and now I'm listening to a book about scripture study which is also really good. While exercising, I enjoyed watching National Treasure and now I'm partway through Shang-Chai and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is the only Marvel movie I haven't seen yet (at least until the next one comes out). 

My left shoulder and neck have been hurting quite a bit the last few days...not sure why. And now today my right arm is hurting too! I just love getting older. Most of the time, things like this go away after a few days so hopefully that will be the case this time too. Frank rubbed my shoulder and neck for me a bit last night and even though it hurt, it did help a bit. 

I'm pretty sure that's all we have to report this week so I will finish up with a few sunrise photos. I feel like we get some of our best sunrises in January.

Weekly Review January 6 '23

This week we dived back into a regular routine, although we had a holiday weekend first of course. 

On Saturday the 31st we spent quite a bit of time taking down all the Christmas decorations. Part of me is always kind of sad to take them down because I love Christmas lights and other decorations, but part of me is glad because the house seems bigger and less cluttered without the decorations there. We couldn't take all of the boxes back to the storage unit because one of them doesn't fit in Frank's car and my car was still in the shop. We did take everything else to the storage unit on Saturday and we took the last box over last night. After doing all that and cleaning the kitchen floor I was pretty tired! 

We did the usual things for New Year's Eve...made a bunch of appetizers for dinner and started working on a jigsaw puzzle. Jared came by for several hours that evening to visit (Jessie had been shopping and doing other errands with her mom all day so she was too tired to come) and he helped us with the puzzle too. None of us stayed up until midnight, though. We were all tired and we had church in the morning. I didn't take a photo of the puzzle before we went to bed, but I did take one early the next morning before we worked on it:

Our church meeting time moved from 9:00 to 10:30, so we didn't have to get up quite as early as we had been on Sundays. After church, Jared & Jessie stopped by on their way home from church so that Jared could assist while Dad ordained Seth as a priest. (It's hard to believe he is almost 16! How did that happen???) The rest of the day was quiet with naps for some, reading scriptures and working on the puzzle. The puzzle seemed to go together quicker than usual. I took a few photos to show our progress; these photos were taken at approximately 2:00 pm, 4:00 pm, and 6:00 pm:

(We weren't working on it constantly, we took breaks...like between 4:00 and 6:00 we ate dinner and did the dishes.) We were surprised to finish the puzzle in less than 24 hours...it usually takes us a few days. Jared and Jessie gave me this cool gadget for Christmas that allows us to move a puzzle from one place to another, so once it was done we moved it into the living room onto the coffee table and we were able to take down the table in the kitchen where we were working on it (so we could move around the kitchen easily again!) 

On Monday I was back to doing my regular chores even though Frank was still off work and Seth was off school. I was also able to finish up the tax law certification test and I got 100% on it so I'm good to go for another tax year. I have spent a little bit of time reviewing some of the tax course this week, although not a lot of time. Each chapter has some self-check questions at the beginning and I've been going through those. So far, I've answered most of them correctly without having to look things up so that means I'm remembering a lot of the material. 

Frank went back to work and Seth went back to school on Tuesday. I started exercising again on Tuesday too...hadn't done that since we had Covid, so it's definitely good to get back to it. We got to ease back into Seminary this week...it didn't resume until Thursday. Since I didn't have my car back yet on Tuesday and Frank leaves for work before Seth leaves for school, Seth walked to school on Tuesday morning. It was a little strange sending him out the door because it was still quite dark outside! He made it to school just fine, though. 

My car finally got looked at that day and it turns out that the warning light was just a result of the battery being replaced...there wasn't actually anything wrong with the emissions system. Of course they looked the car over thoroughly and found a bunch of other things that needed to be fixed! Some of those things we can do ourselves but we did have them fix several things...the car is 13 years old so it needed a few things done. One thing I had them do that I normally wouldn't is replace the windshield wiper blades. That's because the last time we replaced them, Frank could not find the exact blades we were supposed to have for my particular car. The ones that were the closest do work, but they don't fit quite right so every time I use them, they drag across the windshield and make a loud screaching noise. Since we had the car at a Hyundai dealer, I figured they would be able to obtain the correct wiper blades. I was right! We picked my car up on Wednesday evening and last night when I was driving home from book club it started raining. I flipped on the wipers and was thrilled when they made no noise!! Definitely worth it!

On Tuesday evening we had our first youth activities for the year. We had class activities, so I was with my new class for the first time. The girls I had last year moved up into the oldest class and I have the younger class now. (We only have 2 classes now instead of 3 also.) There are a total of 8 girls in my class...4 of them just moved into YW at the beginning of the year. Six of those girls come pretty regularly to church and activities. For our first activity, we played board games...the kind that you play at parties to get to know each other better...and we had some snacks. I planned to bring some chips and soda, but one of the new girls really wanted to bake something and bring it to share so we had freshly baked cookies as well (and they were really good). We had a fun evening, and I am going to really enjoy this class, I think. 

Five of the girls came and one of them brought a friend so there were six girls there.

Jared and Jessie came over Wednesday evening to have dinner with us. It was good timing because my car was ready to be picked up so Jared was able to drive me over there to meet Frank and pick up my car. (Frank worked from home that day but he also went to do some work for a client later in the day and he was returning from there.) We played a few games after dinner which was fun.

Yesterday we really had to get back into our regular routine, since Seth had Seminary. Seth had an orthodontist appointment in the late morning so I took him to that. He got new wires on both the top and the bottom...they were attaching the new wires to the brackets that they put on his back molars last time. Not surprisingly, his teeth are really sore today. I remember what that feels like...not very fun!! This is the last stage of braces for him, though. Once his back molars are pulled into alignment he'll be able to get his braces off. I'm not sure how long that will be though...probably several months still. After we were done at the orthodontist, I took him to the CTC because that's where he needed to be by that time. On the way there I stopped and got him a milkshake because he hadn't had a chance to eat his lunch yet and I knew his teeth would be really sore by the time he got home from school. 

I already mentioned that I went to book chat last night. We discussed The German Girl. Most people didn't like it very much...it was kind of a depressing book overall. It wasn't my favorite either but I think it was worth reading. Now we are going to read a book called Grandma Gatewood's Walk. It's my turn to bring the books to choose from next time...that's always a bit challenging for me but hopefully I'll figure it out. 

Today I had a follow up appointment with the eye doctor and he decided to tweak my prescription just a bit so I will be getting another trial set when they come in. I'll be able to get the new lenses for my glasses put in tomorrow. 

This evening the sister missionaries came over for a visit...one of them is new to our ward so they just wanted to give her a chance to get to know us. They were here about an hour when we discovered that they hadn't had dinner yet...by then it was around 8:00 pm! So we fed them some soup. I started writing this post before they got here and now it is bedtime. I spent the rest of the day working on financial stuff and have all of that up to date. 

We've had unusually warm weather this week, with temperatures getting up into the 50s or even 60s most days. No complaints from me about that!! It's been cloudy a lot so I've been happy for the few sunny moments we've had. Today the temperatures started dropping again and we'll be having high temps in the 40s this coming week which is a lot colder than it's been, but still not too bad for January. 

To finish up, here are a few photos I took at sunset last night.